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News • Helsinki • Finland • 2014-08-29

Design Driven City newsletter 8/2014

8/2014

The August edition of the Design Driven City newsletter tells you about the ample design offerings of Helsinki in September. We also congratulate Helsinki Design Week on the festival’s 10th anniversary!

Osma Harvilahti, Kokoro & Moi

Helsinki Design Week turns 10

Helsinki Design Week is the largest design festival in the Nordic countries. This year’s Helsinki Design Week is held on 4–14 September, with a more extensive programme than ever before. There are more than 150 events produced by 100 organizers. The multi-disciplinary Helsinki Design Week showcases design on a broad basis and incorporates fashion, architecture and urban culture.

Helsinki Design Week 2014 celebrates its 10th anniversary with the theme Take a Leap. The dates of the anniversary festival are 4–14 September 2014.

Congratulations, Helsinki Design Week!

See Helsinki Design Week programme here

Simo Karisalo

Don’t miss Festival City – KoeHelsinki

Helsinki Festival has taken over the city in August. The festival continues to Sunday, 31 August, so you still have the opportunity to join! See the festival programme here.

One of the Helsinki Festival novelties this year is a festival park, named Festival City – KoeHelsinki (“Experience Helsinki”) and it is located on Citizens’ Square (Kansalaistori). Festival City is an urban oasis, open to all and packed with cultural delights. Join us for circus, cinema, cooking, poetry and a festival club – most of it free of charge.

Festival City - KoeHelsinki was designed with the help of Design Driven City’s City Designers. One of them, Mikko Kutvonen, explains on the Design Driven City website how design thinking was utilized in the festival park.

Read about Mikko\'s thoughts on Design Driven City website

Mikko Saarainen

City Design Meet-Up 8 September

The City Design Meet-Up, organized in cooperation with Helsinki Design Week, brings together design entrepreneurs and city representatives in charge of procuring design services. The topics of discussion include the possibilities to use design in the planning of public services, how design enterprises could better meet the needs of the public sector, and how cities could be better clients for design enterprises.

This event held at the City Hall is open to all and free of charge. Welcome!

Read more

The harbour of Copenhagen, Courtesy of Danish Embassy

Helsinki – Copenhagen

The Hanasaari Swedish-Finnish Culture Centre organizes a city planning seminar on 10 September, focusing on cities and urban culture. What kind of city encourages citizens to engage and promotes rich urban culture? What role does architecture play in creating the identity of a city?

Helsinki - Copenhagen: Dialogue on Curating and Designing the City -seminar gathers together an inspiring group of people who influence the development of urban environments – citizens, initiators, decision makers and those who enable initiatives – to share their visions and knowledge, challenging each other.

The seminar is open to all and free of charge. It is part of the Helsinki Design Week’s programme.

Read more and register

Maija Astikainen

New signage for Tori Quarters

What could city signs of the future look like in a historical urban setting? The Tori Quarters, sandwiched between Helsinki’s Senate Square and Market Square, are a testing ground for new types of signage. The Tori Quarters have asked students of the Lahti Institute of Design to work on ways to guide citizens and visitors to new places in the quarters.

The students and the City Designers coaching them were presented a challenge: how to guide local people in their own city, and how to encourage them to try out new routes?

Prototypes of signs designed by the students are on display at the Tori Quarters during Helsinki Design Week.

The general public can join the project to design new signage for the Tori Quarters at workshops held in the Ahead! exhibition area of the Habitare design fair on Saturday, 13 September, from 10–14.

Read more

Vallisaari: Tuomo Häyrinen

OpenHouseHelsinki 12–14 September

OpenHouseHelsinki is a weekend city event that opens doors to places normally closed for the general public. The guided tours of OpenHouseHelsinki take participants to the towers of the Railway Station and Helsinki Cathedral, the U.S. Embassy, the Vallisaari island, the Marmoripalatsi (“Marble Palace”) villa and many other exciting places. To honour the centennial of artist and author Tove Jansson, OpenHouseHelsinki organizes a tour to Tove’s Helsinki, leading participants to important places of Tove Jansson’s life in the Helsinki city centre.

The tours are free of charge, and they are led by designers and other experts.

See the OpenHouseHelsinki programme here

Mikko Saarainen

Helsinki CityJam 9 September

Come and try hands on service design at Helsinki CityJam. Helsinki CityJam is a service design workshop that focuses on the challenges of independent living faced by the elderly and the disabled. The workshop seeks solutions for helping people to continue living in their own homes.

Helsinki CityJam is open to all. There is no lecture or seminar, but you learn through hands-on activities. Experienced service designers assist you in the methods of service design, innovative problem solving and rapid modelling. Helsinki CityJam will be organized in Finnish.

Read more

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The legacy of World Design Capital Helsinki 2012 lives on in Design Driven City. The project promotes the use of design by cities and creates ways to incorporate design thinking into the development of public services. Design Driven City provides expert design services for cities and helps the design sector to understand how the public sector works.

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